Vanishing Islands of India

LohacharaIsland, in the Sundarbans in West Bengal, once home to 10,000 people, has disappeared beneath the seas. LohacharaIsland is the first inhabited island to be swallowed by the rising sea. Environmentalists claim it is the first causality of Global Warming.

Suparibhanga, a nearby uninhabited island, has also vanished. Two-third part of GhoramaraIsland has also been permanently inundated. The area is home to the famous Royal Bengal Tigers.

“There’s nothing any more where our island once was. It’s just a huge stretch of sea where vessels ply,” says Shamila’s father Seikh Abdullah, among the first batch of envirogees (environment refugees) who have now settled in Sagar. Nearly 7,000 of his former island mates are his neighbors again.

A dozen islands in the area are under threat. Environmentalists and climate scientists are predicting a grim future for many of the islands and coastal cities around the world.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.